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Friday, June 22, 2012

BRAD MARSH NEEDS YOUR HELP!
SUPPORT THE RIDE! DONATION DAY TO TAKE PLACE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2012

Brad Marsh’s 90 Day Challenge to ride his bike across Canada to raise
awareness and funds for the Boys and
Girls Clubs of Canada gears up for the longest day on the bike yet and we
want YOU to be part of it by showing your support for Brad and the Boys and
Girls Clubs of Canada.

There have been lots of
hills, windy rides, rainy days, motels and hotels, big trucks, tons of floor
hockey, one bear sighting and lots and lots of big smiles from the kids along
the route and now Brad is attempting his biggest challenge of all as he gears
up for his longest and most challenging day on the bike so far.

On Wednesday, June 27 Brad will peddle his longest distance yet. He
will be on his bike for 10-14 hours and cover 330 kilometres in one day! It
will be a huge accomplishment for a great cause and we want you to be there to
support it!

How can you ‘be’ there? On Donation Day we are asking all of
Brad’s supporters and followers who haven’t already donated to the ride to
consider making a donation on that day by clicking on the ‘Support the Ride’ button on his Facebook page and leaving a
comment on his wall. Then forward this to all of your friends and family to
help raise the awareness of the Boys and Girls Clubs. All donations made on Donation
Day will also be entered into a draw for some great prizes.

Join us throughout the day on
Facebook and Twitter for regular updates and interviews and feel free to Tweet
and Facebook updates on your own pages to help spread the word. You can tweet
this release using this url http://sdrv.ms/KYNlo4

You can also donate directly
from Brad’s Facebook page and don’t forget to leave a comment on his wall.

Team Marsh thanks you for your continued
support!

Follow Brad’s “Living the Adventure of
Life ONE 90 Day Challenge @ A Time” by becoming a fan at www.facebook.com/BradMarsh90DayChallenge and on Twitter
@BradMarshNHL to keep up to date on this and future Challenges

Monday, June 18, 2012

When Dad retired I was only seven years old. It’s safe to
say any old hockey stories I know or retell, I don’t know from first hand. More
often than not I’ve collected the story after sitting around the table with a
couple of cold beverages and my Dad and his buddies as they talk about the good
ol’ days. What’s most incredible however, is not the stories themselves. It’s
the camaraderie that is truly amazing. It doesn’t matter if they played
together or against each other. It’s not even important that they played in the
same era, for these guys it’s about sharing a common bond that lasts a
lifetime.

I’ve learned from an early age that whenever there’s an
opportunity to follow Dad around and get a privileged glimpse into the inner
circle of the NHL brotherhood, I tag along without shame. At 26, some might say
I’m getting a little old for it but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Through
all of this tagging along I’ve learned that for every superstar there is an
underrated linemate, for every wound that time has healed there’s likely a
grudge that will never die and for every player lucky enough to play in
hockey’s greatest league, there’s a team of mentors that got them there. The
true insights into how the game is or was don’t come from commentators and analysts
but from the men who were there long before outrageous contracts and composite
one piece sticks.

The NHL Alumni is a strong family encompassing everyone
lucky enough to make a living playing the game they love at the highest level.
Each team’s Alumni is special in their own way but the Ottawa Senators Alumni
is truly an exceptional group of guys. When the Alumni was formed it consisted
of former NHLers who now call Ottawa their home. Most of the guys never played
together and in the beginning, very few even played on the Senators. Despite
the differences in where and when they played, these men came together forging
a unique bond to make a difference in the Ottawa community. As the history of
the Senators gets richer and richer every year, new players are joining the
Alumni not only to give back to the city that cheered them on in their career,
but to restore that kinship that only a hockey dressing room can build.

I can barely put into words the feeling of riding into
Scotiabank Place June 4 with my Dad to the encouraging crowd awaiting our
arrival. The outpouring of support has been incredible and truly appreciated
through our entire ride from everyone but the Ottawa Senators Alumni especially
have always, and continue to go above and beyond in helping this cause. Whether
it’s as big as arranging an entire parade including military vehicles, a police
escort and hundreds of people or being the first to offer a place to stay or
just taking time out of their day to come say hi and show their support, the
Ottawa Senators Alumni have the most heart in the league.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Most
professional cyclists will probably list yellow as one of their favourite
colours. This is because the leader of the Tour de France wears the maillot jaune, or the yellow jersey. In
fact, the lead of each category in the Tour comes with an associated colour:
the green of the Points Leader, the red and white polka dots of the King of the
Mountains, and the white of the Best Young Rider. But there is one colour that
is not sought after by the riders of the Tour: the red of the Lanterne Rouge.
Named after the red lantern on the back of the caboose of trains, this title is
earned by the rider in last place. And on the 90-Day Challenge ride across
Canada, I am going to be the undisputed Lanterne Rouge.

After
spending a few days on the ride, two things have been made clear to me: Canada
is very big, and I am a lot slower than the men in my family. Although I spent
most of my time on the bike drafting behind Erik, I still found myself having
to crank it in a high gear to keep up. So somewhere between Kingston and Ottawa
I made the decision to approach this as more of a mental challenge than a
physical one. On a particularly difficult stretch of the road that had my legs
burning, I turned to an old strategy that I had used during my time as a rower.
I used to make a mental list of reasons to keep going, whether it was a person
who inspired me or a personal goal I wanted to accomplish, and dedicated 10
strokes of each race to each of the items on the list. On the bike, I broke it
down into 10-minute segments.

The first
10 minutes was a no-brainer: my dad. For obvious reasons, he is a huge
inspiration. His commitment to the community, to the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs,
and to his 90 day challenges is more than reason enough to keep the legs
pumping. In the interest of time and space, I won’t go into all the details but
will simply say that he is one of the biggest inspirations in my life and
helped me get through those ten minutes in the same way that he has gotten me
through innumerable situations.

Next I pedalled
for the Boys and Girls Clubs. It sounds silly to say that I dedicated 10
minutes to them when the entire ride itself is devoted to them, but during those
few minutes I spent some time thinking about what exactly it meant to be riding
for them. I thought of the stories my dad had told me from the clubs out west,
the little boy in the bike parade in Kingston who showed up dressed like
Batman, and the look on a little boy’s face when he scored on a penalty shot
during floor hockey. Those 10 minutes were when I truly understood what my dad
had been saying this whole time about how the kids make it easy to get on the
bike.

In the next
few segments I rode for each member of my family who has contributed in some
way to the trip, for our family friends who have supported us in countless ways
so far, for the chance to see our beautiful country, and maybe a little bit for
myself and my pride (Sorry, Erik, but I just couldn’t let you have the
satisfaction of dropping your little sister).

While my first two days of riding certainly
weren’t easy, they were a ton of fun and I can’t wait to get back on the bike
in Moncton. Instead of one 90-Day Challenge, for me, this will be a succession
of 10-minute challenges. Hopefully my mental lists will help me claw my way to
Newfoundland, and maybe by the end of the trip I’ll be able to upgrade from the
red of the Lanterne Rouge to the white jersey of the Best Young Rider.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Any time you’re away from home for a long stretch of time,
it doesn’t matter what you miss about home in particular, when its boils down
to it its really just a feeling of belonging. It’s the feeling of being
comfortable putting your feet up on the coffee table and watching whatever you
want on TV. It’s the feeling of walking into the kitchen and grabbing a snack.
It’s the caring people around you that greet you with a smile and ask you how
your day was. On the road it can get hard. You’re away from loved ones and
friends and its hard to find a time and place where you can truly comfortably
relax. It can wear you down mentally and make it hard to keep on going.

Luckily for us we’ve met up with some amazing people along
the way that have gone out of their way to make us feel at home even though its
been well over a month since we’ve been in Ottawa. When we rolled into Toronto
ahead of schedule we called up my cousin Melissa and she and her husband Mark
rolled out the red carpet for us. They had a comfortable place for Erik, Tory
and I all to sleep and an incredible dinner on the table. We had a great time
at dinner catching up and they insisted on taking care of us for the remaining
two nights we’d be in Toronto. From there we were off to Belleville, where
Senators Alumni and Lieutenant Colonel, Ed Staniowski took us in. Ed cooked up
some steaks and we all sat back, relaxed and watched the hockey game.
Admittedly, there was more than a few “back when we played…” type comments, we
had a fantastic night. In the morning, I made my bed but I must say I was a
little nervous as I’m not sure it was quite up to military standards.

Great Kingston Welcome

Rolling into Kingston was truly one of the most
unforgettable experiences I’ve had. Rick Smith, another member of the Senators
Alumni, teamed up with his buddy, Inspector Brian Begbie of the Kingston Police
to plan a full day of festivities celebrating not only my ride and the Boys and
Girls Club but all the leaders and mentors in the community. We arrived at our
“RV point” (that’s what Ed said, I’m assuming its military for “rendezvous”) to
an entire crowd of people cheering and before I knew it I was at the front of
an entire parade! A military band marched at the front filling the streets with
music, followed by dozens of cyclists, police escorts, firefighters, mounted
police, military vehicles, ambulances and hundreds more marching, including
some Junior hockey players from the Kingston area.

The kids were raring to go when we finally arrived at the
Boys and Girls Club and we had a fantastic floor hockey game and celebration to
recognize the importance of leadership in the community. Everybody in Kingston
did the city proud and I can’t express how incredible the reception there was.
Inspector Begbie was proud of the leaders in his city too and told me, “Alright
Brad, now if anyone tops that welcome, you let me know and then come back here
and we’ll do it all over again!”

Huge Welcome at Scotiabank Place

After Kingston it was on to Ottawa, my hometown. Erik,
Madeline and I fought the wind the entire way. We battled and battled and finally
rolled up to Scotiabank Place (maybe it was a good thing they built the arena
out in Kanata) where we rode right into the Zamboni entrance straight onto the
Arena Floor. The new Jumbotron was lowered and said “Welcome Home Brad!” The
Senator’s Alumni was there to greet me as well as friends of mine I know
through all sorts of things. As I stood up to give a quick speech I couldn’t
help but be a bit choked up by the massive outpouring of support. The mayor
declared June 4, 2012 “Brad Marsh Day” in Ottawa and Cyril Leeder, President of
the Ottawa Senators presented Erik, Maddy and I with sweaters to take along for
the ride. The media support was fantastic and we had a great time before we
hopped on the bikes again for a quick 20km ride with some friends to the Boys
and Girls Club. Johnny Barrett won the prize for best bike accessory as he
strapped a case of beer to the pannier of his bike.

Once again the kids were fantastic and really had us running
but thankfully I could lean on my Alumni buddies to take a shift for me every
once and a while. Now I won’t start any squabbles between Inspector Begbie and
the Ottawa team so I won’t say one was better than the other, I’ll just say
that the support that everyone showed in those two cities especially means so
much to me and everyone involved in this ride. The headlines the next day said,
“Making a Difference” and with all the help we’re getting, this trip is
becoming even more of a success.

As I said before, the distance can be hard, but with the
warm welcomes we’ve received everywhere we go, we can always feel at home, even
if my house if 4000km away. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone
who has welcomed us into their communities and their homes, and lent us a hand
with whatever it may be, you are what keep our pedals turning.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Update from Team Marsh from Riviere-du-Loop gives a review of the ride so far and also the added bonus of a butt update! Also notice the snazzy Marsh cap and Sens biking jersey and leave a comment and let us know what you think!Watch here

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Every sport has this guy. He looks to be about a hundred yet
somehow manages to make you look like a complete novice while your jaw drops to
the floor in disbelief. Whether it’s a cyclist on an old steel bike with
panniers effortlessly blowing past you while you suck wind on a hard ascent or
the Grandpa that hits every fairway and green on the course to destroy you by
ten strokes, Old Man Strength is real. This phenomenon is especially prevalent
in sports where endurance and intelligence are rewarded.

I seem to see it every time I’m out for a weekend ride. How
can these old guys, more than double my age, just keep going and going while my
legs scream at me to stop pedaling? Maybe they’ve tuned out their pain
receptors the same as they can tune out a bunch of kids making too much racket
or a nagging spouse. Maybe the beer belly and sagging skin is perfect
insulation for the super-muscles they have hiding beneath the surface. Whatever
the answer is, it’s no less frustrating every time one of these guys leaves me
looking at his rear end as he rides away into the distance.

Isn’t everything supposed to be cyclical: The young boy
grows up emulating his Dad, then comes the day he can finally best him only for
his own son to overtake him when that fateful day comes? Why then am I finding
it so tough to hang on to Dad’s wheel? Sure he put in more training hours than
me but I’m young and full of vigor! Shouldn’t he be the one asking me to slow
down? Realizing I won’t play in the NHL like Dad was disappointing but discovering
he also has the rare genetic predisposition that is Old Man Strength might just
be too much.